Spore... meh.Follow

I'm starting a new thread on this because the other one on the front page is more about tech help than the actual game.

First impression, wow, this is really cool! HEY! STOP TRYING TO EAT ME!

Cell stage was fun, and a nice introduction to the world of spore, and creating your creature. (I never downloaded the creature creator, I wanted to wait till I had the full game.) A single play through of the cell stage was all I really needed, I probably won't go back unless I get the unhealthy desire to get all the achievements.

Creature stage, again, fun, but a little dull. You can't stack attributes, so building your creature boils down to min/maxing your stats to get the best combat or social abilities depending on your play style. This realization was a bit of a letdown for me, I was hoping I could stack wings to make an herbivore able to pluck fruit from the tallest trees. I wish I could make a quadruped, or sextuped, and get blazing speeds. You can't... lame.

Tribal stage, this is where I start to get really let down with this game. How the hell do I convert an angry tribe into a friendly tribe? Every time I go to offer food as a gift, I get thwomped, or I accidentally try to steal food instead. It's frustrating, and there is no clear way to convert them into a more sociable tribe. Is it just not possible to win this stage without killing off a tribe or two? If so, that's really really lame. And what the hell are domesticated pets for anyway? You can't ride them, they just stand around in the little pen behind your hut, and that's about it.

Civilization stage, I gave up on winning with a social victory in the tribal stage (on my first play through) so, the civilization stage boiled down to nothing more than 1. Amass an army, 2. Crush other tribes, 3. Replenish army as they die. I didn't have to fight at all to maintain a steady resource flow here. I flew through this stage, and I feel very unsatisfied. I know the hype for this game was astronomical, but this part of the game I had the most hope for. I was praying for Civilization, what I got was something far more basic.

Space stage, here is where my love of the game is starting to be rekindled. I enjoy the exploration, and the sheer amount of upgrades and miscellaneous other bits of entertainment. Finding artifacts is kinda fun, and interacting with other species is entertaining. I haven't gotten very far into the space stage, but I have hope that it will be the best part of the game.

Overall, everything up to the space stage was a total letdown. Cell, fun once. Creature, fun, until the creature limitations set in. Tribal, confusing and lacking depth. Civilization, absolute dismal letdown. Space, might actually be worth the price of admission. The games concept and execution are amazing, I will admit it, but where they excelled in innovation, they failed in depth. I like sim games like this, where nearly every bit is customizable. I really like making my own creatures, buildings, and ships, but this game really just makes me want to dust off my copy of Sims 2, and make another soap opera with miniature versions of my friends.

Yeah, now that I mention it, that sounds like way more fun.

Cell Stage and Creature Stage are fun. Cell because it is a great introduction into the scope of the actual game. You are tiny and you can tell. You can see things that are much much larger than you out of the focal range, just lurking. It's cool to see yourself grow and become the large creatures.

Then you get a brain and can go up on the shore, where the cool part is collecting parts and customizing your dude. I also have to admit attacking a fairly large dopey looking creature with 5 of my vicious little carnivorous bastards was awesome. Reminded me of the little green dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1 or 2).

I had fun, played with all sorts of designs, finally made my dude walk upright and head out to the tribal stage. and BLAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Welcome to an RTS with options as limited as games that started the genre. AI? HA! there is no AI. Ok, its not really RTS yet, that comes later. This is RTS meets Sims where you "interact" with your neighbors. But instead of making whoopy you chop them up and raze their village, or befriend them if you are being nice. You have to micromanage your food gathering, you cant just set somebody to gather it at least not as a carnivore. The fighting is remarkebly easy, and also remarkebly more diverse than the civilization stage. You can have creatures who are stronger at attacking buildings/troops and shamans who can heal, though you have to actively heal your creatures, but you couldnt click on their icon. Had to click on the physical character which was tough since the health bars only show up with a mouseover.

Bummer in that stage is no customization aside from the apparel your creatures get to wear.

Move onto Civ Stage and guess what, every other civilization on the planet is made by YOUR creature. So all you see is your creature everywhere. There are thousands of creatures to choose from on the server, maybe even millions, and you have to fight the guys you created? huh!? Customization is back in this stage with the designing of every building and military vehicle. I did not mess with the buildings that much, i didnt like the way you built stuff. It was hard to be geometrical without any reference points. If they made the building a little more like in the Sims it would have been better. Hell i would have been happy with a simple grid.

I get to design my first military vehicle, im stoked. I put a big artillery cannon on the backside, and two smaller blasters on the front. it looks sweet. go attack something, and it looks like the artillery is firing. Cool. I later redesign my vehicle and take off the artillery, i still shoot the same. the guns mean NOTHING! you still attack the same no matter what. >_< Sure it looks custom if you zoom in to an unplayable level, but in actuality everybody is exactly the same with only speed/attack/HP balance being slightly different.

Built some boats, they shoot rockets, doesnt matter what weapon you have on them, they shoot rockets. period. Built planes, same deal.

Enemies mindlessly zerg the hell out of you and play a constant cat and mouse with your resources. (hint, if you are on an island, kill all the villages on it pronto before they can develop. The resource stealing can get annoyingly out of hand)

So my creature ran around killing a village and conquering myself over and over 4 or 5 times and then i get to make my spacecraft. It has potential to be cool (the scope still blows me away) and that is where i am at now. I HOPE it actually is cool since this entire game had potential to be awesome and has so far disappointed overall.

its a shame that past tribal, your beloved creation is just an icon and never interacted with again. at least not that i have seen.

yep.

going through creature stage to find every part, get your guy PERFECT with maximzsed ability, then have it all mean nothing once you press the "evolve" button.... waste of time.

im pretty sure will wright has said he'd rather have the metacritic rating of sims2 along with the sales, then the metacritic rating of halflife with its sales.
so basically, they would rather have an easily accessible casual game that will sell loads, rather then a great complicated one that wont.


Edited, Sep 12th 2008 5:32pm by MasterOfWar

Edited, Sep 12th 2008 5:35pm by MasterOfWar

the sims blow, at least in this game you can use some creativity.

These reviews confuse me, because all the reviews I have read so far loved the game.

For example, the guy who writes/draws CAD.

I was just debating buying the game too... Perheps I'll wait.

Idea:10/10

Puting it into practice: 1/10 and thats generous.

This game could have been awesome, but they didn't bother to do anything with it and thats what really flustrates, I know that the kids of today have an attention span of 15 minutes, but please a little depth would have been nice.

Cell stage which imhois the best last all of 30 mins... THIRTY F*cking minutes! WTF? please tell me that there was a programmer throwing his toys out of the pram at the corperate f*ckwit who told him that the best part of his game could only last thirty minites.

Tribal stage? Oh noes that tribe doesn't like me.... hit firework button ohhh now they like me, that was hard... NOT!!!!

Are MMo's the only games left that require effort?

I liked creature stage the best. I wanted the Tweetors to be my friends so badly, but they just hated me, and they'd always attack... I finally had to make them go extinct. So sad, but it had to happen.

your not forced to evolve though, at least on my second cell stage i just did i wasnt, i could swim around for as long as i wanted, though there isnt much of a point to it.

i think you can do that with any of the stages.